Talks set on union purge, salary cuts for county lawyers

The county has already pared down its list of deputy district attorneys it believes it can remove from 43 to 40, but the Clark County Prosecutors Association argued in court that the list should be scaled back even further, to only about 18 lawyers in the district attorney’s civil division.

That could eliminate more than half the $390,000 in taxpayer money the county expected to save each year by taking away the union rights and reducing salaries 6 percent.

At the urging of District Judge Douglas Herndon on Friday, both sides agreed to sit down next week to try to iron out exactly who qualifies for the salary cuts under Senate Bill 98, a new law that bars publicly paid attorneys who handle civil litigation from belonging to a union.

The County Commission voted 6-1 on Tuesday to begin the union purge, prompting the prosecutors union to file separate legal actions challenging both the vote and constitutionality of the state law.

On Friday, Herndon dismissed one of the court cases, denying the union’s request to nullify the County Commission vote.

Following a 90-minute hearing, Herndon told the prosecutors association it should first take its concerns about the commission vote to the Local Government Employee-Management Relations Board, a state agency set up to oversee the collective bargaining process for public workers.

Afterward, Chief Deputy District Attorney Marc DiGiacomo, the union’s spokesman, said his organization would file a complaint with the state agency.

The prosecutors union charged in its court petition that the commission had abused its authority and violated the terms of the collective bargaining agreement with the union.

Last week, the union filed a lawsuit alleging the county was unlawfully taking away union protections from its members guaranteed under state law. The lawsuit also alleged that SB98 was unconstitutional.

County lawyers later filed papers in federal court seeking to get the lawsuit transferred there because of the constitutional issues the union raised.

During Friday’s hearing, DiGiacomo told Herndon that the county was incorrectly including about 22 deputy district attorneys from the criminal, juvenile and family support divisions in its latest list. Attorneys in all three divisions have authority to do criminal work, he argued.

The pay cuts of the targeted deputies will be felt in their July 29 paychecks, officials said. That’s the same day the county and the union are scheduled to meet with a mediator in their effort to reach a new collective bargaining agreement.

Prosecutors earned an average of $166,000 in pay and benefits last year. About 146 union members are covered under the last collective bargaining agreement.

Mark Ricciardi, the private attorney the county hired in the union dispute, argued during the hearing that the union was being duplicative with the separate legal actions against the county.

“They can’t harass us and make the taxpayers pay for two cases,” he said. “It’s outrageous.”

DiGiacomo complained that the county has been keeping the union in the dark about its justification for including so many attorneys on its list.

Herndon told the lawyers he didn’t believe the county was acting in bad faith, but he suggested both sides try to work together better.

Borrowing a famous line from the 1967 movie, “Cool Hand Luke,” Herndon said, “What we have here is a failure to communicate.”

Both sides agreed afterward that sitting down and discussing the subject was a good idea.

Contact reporter Jeff German at jgerman@reviewjournal.com or 702-380-8135.